Susanne Remic is a primary school teacher, freelance writer and parenting blogger. She writes at Ghostwritermummy and Maternity Matters and in between all of that she regularly wins mummy of the year awards for running around after her two children, aged six and 19 months. This is her pregnancy blog: an online diary of her third pregnancy as she strives to overcome two difficult births, one angel child and one awkward toddler. Join Susanne as she shares every step of her journey from bump to baby!
The distraction technique
By Susanne Remic on 01 Feb 2012
I recently read an article that claimed French toddlers did not throw tantrums. The reasons for this phenomenon escape me now, as I preferred to focus my attention on scoffing at such a claim. If French toddlers don’t have tantrums, there is something wrong with them- surely?
Isn’t a tantrum a toddler’s rite of passage, so to speak? Isn’t that the way that they learn boundaries and figure out which buttons they can and can’t safely press with first mum and then dad? Isn’t a toddler having a tantrum a sight that all parents have faced at some point or another? Um. Well, no actually.
I’m not French. But, I do have a child that never had a tantrum. She is now seven years old and we are about to start selling tickets for the travelling freak show when the circus comes to town. For she is, we now realise, abnormal. She must be, since everyone keeps telling me so.
The toddler is the normal one. He is the sane one, who screams and shouts and hysterically cries when you try to put his pyjamas on. He is the one who is developing normally when he does NOT want jam on his toast, he wants butter, and he will tell you so AT THE TOP OF HIS VOICE for the next hour. And yes, it is unreasonable for a child to want to read a book nicely, rather than spend an hour screaming at his mother to STAND UP!!!
Really? Is my daughter really so abnormal? Weren’t we just slightly lucky with her?
The toddler is having meltdowns left, right and centre at the moment and I have to confess to having no idea how to control them at all. Distraction is the best bet. I’ve started to pretend to forget what noises animals make. This actually brings him round on a good day, as he cannot resist telling me that ducks do not miaow and dinosaurs definitely do not quack. On a bad day, I have to ignore him.
What are your thoughts on tantrums? Is it down to parenting, is it normal, or is it just luck of the draw?
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